Kidney Diet Tips for Celebrating Earth Day on Meatless Monday

Today is Earth Day, an extra special reason to plan a Meatless Monday meal.

Eating meatless for one day has a positive impact on your health by lowering your risk of cancer, heart disease, diabetes and obesity. If you already have one or more of these diagnosis, a meatless day can potentially benefit you by decreasing saturated fat and calorie intake. This is a healthy step for people with chronic kidney disease (CKD) or those at risk for CKD, because heart disease and diabetes are risk factors for kidney disease. Another plus for going meatless at least one day a week—less meat consumption is friendly to the environment. The more livestock we raise for meat sources, the more we use natural resources and produce waste that adds to land pollution.

If you are following a kidney diet, you may be limiting protein if you are in stages 3-5, non-dialysis. Many people with CKD find incorporation of meatless meals helps them stick to a lower protein diet.

If you are following a dialysis diet, you may be eating more meat or high protein foods as your protein needs must replace protein lost in dialysis treatments and provide extra for your body. You can still participate in Meatless Mondays by choosing a non-meat entrée that provides a healthy serving of high quality protein, or add a high protein shake or protein supplement to your meal.

2 Comments to “Kidney Diet Tips for Celebrating Earth Day on Meatless Monday”

Margarette Monice said,

I was diagnosed with a cyst in both kidney in 2009 since then I have been seeing a Urologist/oncologist every 6 months. The fact my ankle are swelling, I am unable to lay on my side, my knees are stiff and swollen worry me. What could it be?